Profile picture

Interviewing Q&A and Videos

About Interviewing

[Discussion] Machine Learning Interview tips

Machine Learning Engineer at Taro Community profile pic
Machine Learning Engineer at Taro Community

I've done about 25 ML interviews in the last 3 months. Here's my tips

  1. HM interviews are super common. KNOW YOUR WORK IN DEPTH. This is the single biggest tip I can give
    1. Be able to talk for atleast 5-10 minutes about the ML models you choose. You cant just give a high level description
    2. Understand the tradeoffs with the ML model you choose
    3. I think depth is just everything. You need to understand deeply the frameworks you use, the models you choose, the evaluation methods, deployment strategy. How it works under the hood
  2. DSA is a must. It's hard to cram DSA, but you get really really far with just a bit everyday. About 30% of interviews have a DSA round onsite. Another 30% might have DSA screening (hackerrank/codesignal). I'm not saying grind leetcode 6 hrs a day but even 1-2 problems consistently everyday adds up a lot! and you dont want to be caught unprepared if u get a DSA interview, you cant push back interviews for a month right now
  3. Takehomes/timed take homes are common. Make sure you clearly document and your code is easily reproducible and no steps are missing. e.g. if you did some data preprocessing but its not documented/shown thats bad. The conversion rate on takehomes is pretty high for me so do well on them and treat them seriously. In this interview cycle I've gotten first round interviews for all 6 takehomes i submitted
  4. Interviews are 80% luck and 20% skills in this market. Sometimes you just cant help it they might want a golang developer and even if youre a 200IQ java developer they dont care. Transferrable skills are not the same in this market. Sometimes theres just not a fit and dont beat yourself up. You can do everything right and still fail interviews
  5. Lower Pay/Lower presitge != Easier Interview. They're just different interviews looking for different things. Don't think that just because an interview is for a less prestigious company it will be easier. I've passed first rounds for roles that pay 3x more and 2 levels higher than ones ive failed.
  6. Make sure to go through the JD and note the skills theyre looking for and spend 30 mins being able to insert talking points to highlight those skills

Any other tips anyone would like to add?

Show more
Posted 6 months ago
702 Views
5 Comments

Learn About Interviewing

Interviewing is an essential skill for every software engineer. The tech industry has one of the highest rates of job switching, so learning how to get good at interviewing can elevate your career. Your ability to transition between roles and companies depends on how well you perform during the interview. Taro offers resources for helping you to excel in software engineering interviews. We provide insights on effective preparation strategies and guide you on how to master the interview.
Interviews are a test for you to demonstrate your problem solving and technical skills. The ability to navigate complex challenges during an interview shows how prepared you are to take on the demands of being a software engineer.
Interviews also assess cultural fit and communication skills. This is important because you’ll be working in collaborative work environments where you need to talk to your team and other teams to execute well on your projects. Having great communication skills means you are able to effectively outline a broader vision of your project, dig into the technical details of your project, and communicate any potential issues to your stakeholders.
It’s crucial to thoroughly research the company to get valuable insights and make a good first impression. You can filter our Q&A by company to see whether there are any relevant conversations about the company to help with your interview. You can also check Blind and Reddit to understand what people are saying about the company. Use our Taro Networking feature to reach out to people in a company to get an insider perspective of the company. The company page should include information about their values and culture. Make sure that you align with these values. You should get a sense of the company’s financial reports to understand their products from a revenue point of view.
You should have a solid foundation in data structures and algorithms to show your experience and problem solving capabilities. Pick a programming language that you are proficient in, and use it for the technical portion of the interview. Leetcode is recommended as the best tool to practice for data structures and algorithms type of interviews. The provide a large set of problems with a code editor for you to solve the problems, and they have test cases and performance profiles so you can evaluate your solution. it’s also recommended to prepare through mock interviews.
The above strategies, along with diving more into Taro interviewing resources, can help you effectively prepare for an interview at a tech company.
Show more